Clearly I’m not going to tell you that facebook is a sign of the end times or anything. In fact, lately, I’ve been joking with many of my pastor friends that I would appreciate it if they stopped giving facebook up for Lent, since my family’s finacial future may depend on whether or not people are using it.

My friend Bethany (visit her brilliant blog on inappropriate quotation marks here) just tweeted this:

“Confused by how frequently folks refer to facebook time as “wasted.” A lot of my facebook time is interacting with and supporting friends.”

I’ve been thinking about this. Maybe not coincidentally since a conversation I had with Bethany’s dad a month ago.

And her tweet is a good example of this social media phenomenon and the term “friendship”. By no stretch of the imagination could I say that Bethany is a close friend of mine. Nor her dad. In fact, I don’t think Bethany and I have ever met face to face. And I’m bummed out that just as I’m leaving the Chicago area for California, she’s headed to Chicago, where she’ll be working with a bunch of people who I happen to know in “real” life. (Hey, Bethany! Let me know if those were totally inappropriate quotation marks!)

But, she’s a friend of my friend Katherine who, after being someone I mostly knew online, has become one of my closest in the flesh friends (this friendship, by the way, never would have happened without social media). And those two, actually have a relationship that goes back to some old internet forums. Which is how Katherine met Bethany’s dad online. And why Katherine was excited when he came to speak at my church a year ago. You know how this goes.

Anyway, back to Bethany’s tweet.

I replied to her:

“w/or w/out social media, the question to be asked is: are my dealings w/ friends superficial or deep & redemptive?”

(I do hate that we mangle the language like this on twitter, but there you have it.)

The thing about social media for me is that it has been a lifesaver. I’m a pastor. This is a profession that is often professionally and socially isolating, in part because you are ripped away from the support network you develop while training to be a pastor. I value deeply those people with whom I went through seminary. And I value the other pastors who have come into my life as mentors and colleagues since then.

Of course, you don’t need the internet to keep in touch with these people. My Dad and my Grandpa are both pastors, and they managed to do it. But sometimes, those treasured moments of contact were few and far between.

(My Grandma tells the story of a time when my Grandpa was leading a tour of New Testament sights in the middle east. By some strange sequence of events involving a broken down bus and back roads, he wound up getting off his bus on a dirt road in the middle of no where in Turkey, as one of his seminary classmates got off the other bus, and the two men embraced in the middle of that road. You never know when you’re going to be able to see someone again sometimes!)

Things like blogs and facebook and twitter have allowed me to keep up relationships that might fall away as I’ve moved, as my seminary friends have moved, as time has passed. And often they’ve also enabled me to jump right back into a face to face, in the flesh moment with one of those people.

I’ve also made new friends this way. Friends of friends, people I’ve gone to conferences with, other members of organizations. And some of these people have become my dearest friends.

I’ll admit. I should check these sites less often. They are a terrible curse for the procrastinator who may have a little side of AHDH.

But there are lots of other things that I do too much of, as well. I eat too much chocolate. I listen to NPR too much (no, really, it’s a sick addiction). I am way too in love with my iphone (members of my previous youth group, who are probably not reading this, would giggle at that one, because I used to gently, I hope, poke fun at their constant need to be touching their phones). I bite my fingernails. There are times when I really shouldn’t have another glass of wine. I buy too much yarn. And let’s not get started on my cheese problem.

And there are times when I need to turn off the social media and pay attention to the in the flesh life that I am living in the here and now.

But, that doesn’t mean that social media itself is bad.

It’s how you use it. And how it uses you.

My parents grew up in a denomination that had a number of bans on social vices. Specifically: theater-going; movies; dancing; card playing and gambling (note that smoking and alcohol were OK…not every branch of Christianity had trouble with the same things).

Those bans were lifted when people pointed to the fact that it wasn’t those things in themselves that were bad (although, I’ll admit I sort of feel that way about gambling). The problem was how they could be abused and used inappropriately.

Most of the people of faith I hang around with are not of the sort who would all out ban social media in their faith communities. (Remember that pastor who banned facebook in his church because it made it too easy, he said, for people to commit adultery? And, it turns out that he was involved in a little sexual impropriety himself, perhaps with no help from facebook at all?)

But, I do have friends, like I said, who give it up for lent or talk about getting rid of it altogether.

That might be a good thing to do. I really should “fast” from social media myself sometimes.

But it’s not the thing itself that is the problem. As with so very many aspects of our human condition, it’s what we do with the thing.

One more story about this: my husband’s Grandpa Orville, as a farmer in Northern Wisconsin, helped start the telephone coop in his area. One time, he had to go out and install a phone at the home of an Amish family. The gentleman asked him to put it on the porch. Orville pointed out that it was an odd place for a phone. But the man said he wanted it on the porch so that “I can use it, but it can’t use me.”

The solution is not to ban things, unless we are so deeply addicted that there’s no other way. But to recognize and evaluate how we use it to order our lives in a way that helps us to live in the fulness God intended, and helps us love others into that same fulness.

Overall, when the sun is shining and life is good, I’m quick to say that Church belongs to Jesus, and it’ll survive in spite of us.

But, there are times when I’ve been reading a bit too much about the decline of the Church: how we aren’t doing it right anymore, the pews are emptier and emptier; young adults are absent from our congregations; churches are closing; there will be fewer and fewer positions for “professional” pastors. (And, darn it, what am I supposed to do about that when I was encouraged to shoot straight from college to seminary and into the ministry? My job skills are a little limited!)

And, on top of that, I start to wonder if I am hip enough to be one of the professionals who will survive. Plus, it’s really hard sometimes to do this and be a Mom (have you heard about our horrible nanny saga?); and my baby didn’t sleep last night and I’m tired and he won’t take his afternoon nap, so I can’t catch up on phone calls or work on my sermon.

Did I mention that my husband is moving us across the country and I have to navigate a whole new region of the country and figure out if there’s a place I can serve?

And…and…and…yes, this is the anxiety speaking.

But then, I sit down at my desk, and see this little slip of paper that escaped from a pile of files I organized yesterday:

It’s the announcement of my ordination in the Ebenezer Christian Reformed Church bulletin (my home church during college and seminary). My Grandma Garry clipped it for me. She would give her grandkids envelopes of things she’d clipped, things she thought related to their lives. I think it was part of how she prayed for us. I also know that she clipped and saved those things that made her particularly proud.

And I start to think. Someone wrote that: “God’s faithful provision of leadership for the church.” Someone thought that of my, that I was God’s faithful provision. Chuck and Millie were sent on behalf of an entire congregation.

My Grandma, who grew up in a church that would never DREAM of ordaining a woman, would spit fire at anyone who suggested that her granddaughter perhaps was a little too female to be a pastor (and, spit she did, because I was ordained into a denomination that was still figuring this out while I was in seminary).

There were people who invested in a scholarship for women students at my seminary, and invested in me becoming a minister.

Not to mention other family members, the good church people, classmates, friends, mentors who affirmed my call and pushed me along the path when I wasn’t sure.

I have no idea, most days, what “church” will look like down the road. But there are a whole lot of people standing behind me who pushed me forward because they thought I was part of this faithful provision.

So I’d probably better get off my sorry, anxiety filled rear and get to work on that sermon and start thinking about polishing up my resume for some place somewhere in California that, eventually, somehow, needs someone like me.

Because I’m sure my Grandma and whole lot of other good and faithful saints would be spitting fire if I just threw up my hands in frustration.

My first baby, Zora, was easy in the begetting. (I’ll just leave it at that.) Number two: not so much.

Erik and I planned, in our not so infinite wisdom, to have kids a bit closer together. Maybe two years apart? But as Zora approached four years old, the plan wasn’t working out so well. Our first baby was old enough that she was verbally begging us for a sibling. We decided to get the medical people involved.

The short version of this is that we really only had to dip our toe into the world of fertility treatments. I hesitate to use the term “infertility” because I don’t want to demean the level of struggle and pain that a much longer sojourn toward a baby is for many people.

And, this post is not about what it took medically to get us pregnant. It’s about the day in May when I found out, for certain, that the beautiful change had taken hold.

The call from your clinic, when you are in the midst of this, is the monthly moment of truth. You might be in the car, driving off on a short road trip. Or at at your desk slogging through an e-mail inbox. Or in the grocery store. Chances are, you’re somewhere mundane, because the truth is that most of life is mundane.

But, in this case, for the call when the nurse said, “Yes!” I was somewhere perfect. It was a monday in May, and we drove the 45 minutes to my parents condo in a highrise that backs up onto a sandy beach on the North Side of Chicago. I had gone down to the beach alone.

I wanted some time. I had a strong suspicion, backed up by certain calendar-related physical evidence, that this month might be the month. So I was sitting alone on the beach. It was warm, but not too warm. There was barely anyone out there. The cars running on Lake Shore Drive, just south of the beach, blended in with the little waves. With your back to the city, Lake Michigan went on and on.

My phone rang.

The nurse said, “Congratulations…”

I don’t know what I said next, or what she said. I worried that I didn’t sound excited enough because I didn’t whoop or holler.

But I do remember the exact way that the sand by my toes looked. I remember the little bits and pieces of shell, mixed up with pebbles and flat beads of sea glass. I remember the lake smell, part life, part rot. I remember that the sun was only a little warm.

And I remember that I waited a few minutes to call my husband and then my Mom. Because for just a few minutes, it was just my news.

Abram is 15 months old now. He is, without question, beautiful. Strangers stop in their tracks when he smiles at them. His sister says he’s the thing she’s proudest of (although she hates the mess he makes of her stuff). Now that he’s walking, I’m going to make sure he gets as much time as possible on that beach, in the sand, in the water, with the city behind us and the big lake stretching out to forever.

Less than 10 confirmed their faith. But it was beautiful, each coming forward in turn with their family and adults from the congregation who have mentored and taught and walked with them, kneeling, with the weight of those faithful hands on their shoulders and heads.

I’ve been thinking about the next thing for me and for the church lately (our impending move to the west coast seems a little like taking a time machine about 10 years ahead in church history).

And I agree with many people that the models of how we do church will and have to change.

But meanwhile, we shouldn’t forget: there are still families bringing their children to these “traditional” (whatever that means in a religion with a 2000 year history!) churches; there are still pastors and church leaders and good faithful people working to bring people up in the faith.

And even if there are only 8 instead of 30 on confirmation Sunday, that is something to be celebrated amidst the panic and questions about the future of the mainline. In fact, the responsibilities of those 8 are so much greater than of the 30, don’t you think?

We’re putting our hands on them and putting them in the hands of a God who has been faithful to us for 2000 years of tumultuous history.

I know the future of the church looks different maybe than these churches. But they are still doing good and faithful work. And we can’t forget that.

Two days later, there was a Flemish beef stew in the slow cooker. Zora, overcome with joy at the aroma, asked, “Is it split pea soup?” I explained, no it was not. But it was a recipe from a place close to where split pea soup comes from.

Zora was sure, then, that she would like this meal, too, since she is Dutch, and she likes split pea soup and this stew was from nearby.

Last night, we ordered Thai food (Zora’s request. I’ve done something right, I guess, if my kid request Thai rather pizza when we order out!)

And as she and Abram put away an order of spring rolls, Zora says, “Mom, I think Abram and me can be Thai and Dutch. Because we really like Thai food, too.”

It was too much work to schlepp them downtown to the church we attend right now, so given the choices of churches I’ve never attended in our neighborhood, I went Lutheran. I think the Lutherans are good at Lent. Plus, while I love creative liturgies, sometimes too much creativity is not a good thing. And I figured the Lutherans wouldn’t play it too fast and loose.

It was a good pick, the full Ashes shebang, complete with standing in the courtyard to burn palms at the beginning.

Abram held hands with the lady sitting in the pew behind us (that kid is a flirt), and wasn’t too fussy. Zora was pretty good. Except for the point during the offering, when she was rather loudly pointing out that “this is BORING”. (Note: even a worship service which starts with 4 foot flames doesn’t qualify as exciting. Zora’s a bit of a thrill seeker.)

My kids had ashes smudged on their foreheads. And they took communion. (Zora wigged out a little after downing her cup and discovering that it was full-on wine…no intinction at this place.)

And then we all walked home together. It hailed for a few blocks. But it stopped. And Zora felt like it was warm enough to make Erik carry her coat. (A little too much wine, I think.) She practiced her skipping, and kept asking if her ashes were still intact.

The walk home was the best part of my day. Both Zora and I had temper tantrums earlier. I was wondering if we should just stay home.

But we needed this tonight.

The original plan was to take a restorative, reflective New Year’s Day walk alone. I am almost never alone now: there’s always a kid with me.

But even though Erik had offered to make the original plan happen, by the time I was about to leave, Zora was antsy. I gave her the option, and she decided to come along.

The route meandered through an old quarry-turned golf course, with a side trip to a footbridge over railroad tracks. Before the footbridge, the path looped left or right, a full circle over a field, both ends meeting up at the base of the bridge. I suggested to Zora that she could go left and I could go right. We would see who made it to the bridge first. It was something, I thought as I said it, that would motivate her to keep walking. But as she walked away to the left, I realized that the slight slope of the field would hide her from my view. The circle looked smaller than it was, a trick caused by the bare, green, sameness of the field of short grass. And when she was too far for me to yell for her to come back, the gleam of her bright blond head slipped lower and lower. She turned and waved to me before she disappeared completely. I checked my worry. She would be fine. I would meet her on the other end. We were still headed to the same place.

Last night, someone asked what the highlight of the year was for each person. For me, no question, it was her brother’s birth. It was a magnificent birth. He is a magnificent baby.  2011 was momentous for other reasons, but almost everything that happened can be traced to the fact of Abram’s birth. Even the lack of sleep, slowly accumulated through the year until I caved in to drinking a daily dose of caffeine this fall, even that sweet exhaustion of baby-holding and feeding is his fault. He was born in 2011, and in many ways it was his year.

But while I wasn’t watching, my other child has grown inches and slipped from the round, soft shape of a preschooler into a girl with long strong limbs, finding her way across this loop of path without me.

When her path rises enough, I see her head again. She is luminous, hair blowing around her head like a halo, confident and quick in her step, expecting our reunion, and waving, happy to see me.

We cross the bridge. We put our feet in the water at the edge of the sound.

She still needs me to manage the careful balance of rinsing feet and drying them without shoes or socks slipping into the cold water. She laughs and wiggles on my lap. She is still a little child, angry to leave the shore and go back. She still needs to ride on my shoulder for part of the long walk back.

She will never be as young as she is today.

The book shelves in my study carry great weight for me, though. Again, probably literally, but I’d prefer not to think about what carting these boxes to my car will do to my back, or how many trips of the car it will take to get them home.

I’ve been a minister for almost 8 years now. But this is the first position where my books have had a more permanent place to rest. I packed them up 8 years ago at the end of my seminary internship, and unpacked some of them into my classroom at my first pastoring job: as a high school religion teacher. For the two years I was there, though, I had to pack up the books and take them with me when I left for the summer.

I didn’t bother to unpack them when I was in a pastoral residency program after that: my office was in a hallway and there was barely room for me, let alone my books.

When I arrived here a little over 5 years ago, the congregation was busily preparing to move me into a bigger room. I started out in a smaller one, and spent a few months there, but I returned after my maternity leave that fall to a lovely, huge study with a beautiful picture window next to my desk.

And opposite that window, there’s a whole wall of bookshelves. I got to pick them out of an office supply catalogue. And a dear, dear man named Len assembled them, and lovingly anchored them to the wall since he knew my new baby daughter might learn to crawl and pull up at church.

My books are not just some ivory-tower collection. They are connected to what I’ve done as a pastor. There’s Adam by Henri Nouwen, the book we bought all the kids on a mission trip one year, whether they were ready to read it or not, because we knew Nouwen’s story of his life with a young man with disabilities might help them understand their the week of service at an “Exceptional Persons” camp.

There are several copies of the book I give to grieving parents.

There are Bible commentaries that taught me everything I needed for sermons.

There is a beautifully bound set of all of the worship bulletins from one year of worship in this church that my head of staff secretly stashed away for a year and then turned into books for me and the other associate.

There are my Spanish grammars and workbooks that, as the pastor with the most (although it is truly pitifully little) Spanish I’ve had to use once in a while to help with translation for one of the preschool moms, or for a final check of the language in a document for a mission trip to Guatemala.

There are books about my past, and books about my future. There are books that will always remind me of a certain person, or a certain event.

Even the shelves themselves make me think about Len: when he died a year and a half ago, I was the only pastor available for an immediate visit, so I got to hold the hand that put together my shelves just after he had died, and pray with his family as they let him go.

I went into ministry for many reasons, but the books are a big reason. I love books and learning. I love the way a book can preserve knowledge, dialogue, and community, even through the centuries. I love how they smell, and I love their weight (except when I’m moving them). I love that Christians are “people of the book”.

I know this makes me a traditionalist, and a bit of an old-foagy. And I’m OK with that.

I’m not going to a new call yet. I guess God thinks I need to be not-as-busy for a little while. So in our new apartment, we have given the children a shared bedroom. My husband painted the extra room in a deep browny-purple color, and installed a floor-to-ceiling shelving system for books. In a few weeks, I’ll start unpacking my books there, across from my little arts and crafts oak desk, with one small cozy window looking out at the brick of our neighboring two-flat. There might not be room for all my books: they’ll have to share with Erik’s books and some of the kids books. And this is where I’ll write the occasional sermon and other things for the next little while, and where I hope to carve out some time to read.

As I started packing the books, I realized that they are something of a plug: one of the shelves is empty now, so I know that I am going to leave. And that I’d better get to work because there’s a whole lot to do.

What I wish I could write about is that crazy mission trip, a trip which I do believe could be made into a movie entitled: “National Lampoon’s Mission Trip” (I want to be played by Julie Bowen, by the way, because I like to imagine that if I was ridiculously thin, that’s what I would look like). However (and I’m serious about this) I’m worried that I might be charged with libel if I speak too freely.

So for now, amidst the general insanity that is my life, seven lovely things for the month of July.

1. We have a backyard. I haven’t had a backyard since I left home for college. My parents haven’t lived in a place with a backyard for about 10 years. Thus, my backyard living has been severely curtailed. But now we have one. Fenced in. Complete with fireflies, bunnies, and a garage completely overgrown with ivy. Sigh.

2. On our commutes to and fro, Zora and I have been exploring ways to drive through as much forest preserve as possible. So far, we’ve seen these magical things: egrets nesting; an elk herd; fireflies like stars; patches of prairie; fields of brown eyed susans; and a blimp.

3. Erik and I fell in love with Carolina style barbecue ( the kind with vinegary sauce), and found a good slow cooker approximation. We’re almost out of our first batch, and I think it’s time to make more.

4. A beautiful thing: Zora playing with her herd of little Moe cousins this past weekend…all of them lighting up sparklers in the twilight right about where their Great Grandpa Orville’s barn used to stand.

5. Speaking of that, sparklers were provided courtesy of Erik’s cousin Amy at her wedding. How awesomely nostalgic, sweet, and meaningful is this: Amy and her now-husband bought Orville & Ruth’s farmhouse and had their wedding under a big white tent that stood just to the side of where the barn was (until it had to be taken down a few years ago). Erik got a little teary, I think, when he first spotted the tent, like a phantom of the barn.

6. Two stops, on that wedding trip to northern Wisconsin, for lunch & pie at Norske Nook restaurants. You would not believe this pie. It is too good to be real. I think it might be a sin to drive past one if these places & not stop for pie!

7. Speaking of weddings: my sister Anna is getting married this fall and she is the BEST BRIDE EVER for selecting a bridesmaid dress for us that is completely rewearable…gorgeous but also appropriate for a minister at a professional function.